Henry Darger: Landscapes

Henry Darger: Landscapes at Ricco/Maresca Gallery. "...Darger's landscapes set the ambience for his tales of good versus evil; they are at once romantic, poetic, and often violent. Using tracings from the newspaper clippings and magazine illustrations he amassed, Darger would meticulously configure his compositions. He paid particular attention to visual space and perspective in his landscapes, utilizing a copy machine to size his figures relative to their placement within the picture plane. Some of his landscapes evoke images of war torn battlefields from the Civil War, which the artist reputedly studied. Blustering winds, sleeting rain, and turbulent clouds inhabit his paintings; (he kept a daily weather journal for 10 years). While other landscapes are more saccharin in feel featuring imaginary places with child-like names, set within Darger's Catholic land of Angelina, such as Finger Mountain, Peppermint Place, Onion City and Mistletoe Station."